Social Watch E-Newsletter - Issue 191 - October 31, 2014

It is imperative that a Human Rights-based approach to food security is adopted in order to eliminate hunger and provide access to healthy, nutritious and affordable food for all, the new UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Ms Hilal Elver, has said.

In her first report to the UN General Assembly (A/69/275), which is holding its sixty-ninth session in New York, the rights expert, who is from Turkey, said that in order to advance the implementation of the right to adequate food, renewed political commitment is essential and stakeholders must look to those countries that have made significant progress in adopting policies and legislation in this regard. Read more

RightingFinance has released a human rights audit of the report by the UN Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing. In their assessment, members of the Initiative said that the centrality of human rights and equality should not only permeate the new development goals agreed in 2015, but also the full range of means to finance them.

The Committee, comprising 30 experts nominated by regional groups, was created by the UN the General Assembly pursuant to one of the agreements in the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20). The Committee had the mandate to assess financing needs, consider the effectiveness, consistency and synergies of existing instruments and frameworks, and evaluate additional initiatives, with a view to preparing a report proposing options on an effective sustainable development financing strategy to facilitate the mobilization of resources and their effective use in achieving sustainable development objectives. Read more

Third International Conference on Financing for Development, July 2015 The third International Conference on Financing for Development will be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 13-16 July 2015. It will gather high-level political representatives, including Heads of State and Government, and Ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation, as well as all relevant institutional stakeholders, non-governmental organizations and business sector entities. The Conference will result in an inter-governmentally negotiated and agreed outcome, which should constitute an important contribution to – and support the implementation of – the post-2015 development agenda. Read more

The employment situation of young people in El Alto is not different from that of young people living in the biggest cities of central parts of Bolivia. High information grade, the increasing presence in the wage-earning sector and in the tertiary sector economic activities, as well as stronger hiring for low qualification jobs that in fact does not lead to the substantial improvement of the quality of juvenile education, are similar features that also characterize the youth labour dynamics in El Alto.

Nevertheless, considering high information grade at the labour market of El Alto, the situation of young people demonstrates major signs of employment insecurity translated into high employment instability, low income and social vulnerability. In this context, according to information of the CEDLA, in 2011 only 5 of every 100 employed young people were possessing suitable job positions. Read more